The tweak to handball laws in football has been at the centre of plenty of controversy so far this campaign – and it looks as though there’s no end in sight.
The opening fixtures of the Premier League were riddled with questionable decision making regarding penalties given for ‘handball’ offences, like Eric Dier’s against Newcastle, but rules are rules and the law makers in the game are attempting to make it as black and white as possible.
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What we are left with, though, is a game in which a player must detach their hands and toss them off the pitch if they want to have any hope of avoiding being struck by the ball and a penalty being given against them.
Like this one from Atletico Madrid’s Hector Herrera, who sees the second of a double-deflection cannon off his arm and away from where the trajectory was originally taking the ball.
Pictures courtesy of RMC Sport
The only criticism of Herrera here is him turning his back to the ball, but if he were to face it with full confidence, the chances are it would’ve still hit some part of his arm.
Players really can’t win nowadays, can they? Everything in super-slow-mo looks like handball. Football is not played at 0.25x speed – so why is it being judged on it?